1.Grapevine
2.Cut wire into small pre-cut pieces.I usually cut about 30 pre-cut pieces. This wire will be used to secure the grapevine together as you are wrapping the beach ball.
3.Wire cutters
4.Beach balls ( a few varying sizes )
Buy varying sizes of balls. Make sure you buy the kind of beach balls that you can deflate. The variety of sizes means that you will have a variety of finished sizes of grapevine balls.
Why buy a deflatable beach ball ?
a) you can play with it later
b) If you can’t deflate the ball, you will need to beat the heck out of it, to remove it from your grapevine. Trust me on this one. Buy a deflatable ball. No need to murder a beach ball. No balls need to die in this experiment.
5.Twinkle lights.
You know the kind. Little wee white lights, with a GREEN wire. One box of 50 white mini lights is a good amount to use per ball.
6.Chain, twine, rope &/or extension cord to hang the balls from the trees.
You will not need this chain or rope if you are placing the grapevine balls in the garden. Less Work.
HOW TO CREATE GRAPEVINE LIGHTING BALLS
1.Gather up your grapevine and strip it of the grapes and leaves.
Make your grapevine buck-naked. This is not a glamorous job even though the buck-naked part might sound glamorous. Wear gloves. Do not get a manicure the day before. Been there. Done that. Got the dumb girl poster.
Grapevine looks like this :
Pick the grapevine when it is still growing, soft, and pliable. If you pick it, and let it dry out, it will crack and be too dried out to really work with it. It can be done, but only if you want to do things the hard way. I like the easy route, myself.
2.After you have stripped the grapevine, you are left with the stem { the brown woody part that you see in the picture below }.
Begin to wrap it around a beach ball. Remember, you need to deflate this beach ball when you are done. I usually deflate the ball after the grapevine ball starts to take shape. Don’t try and sneak the beach ball out after you have made a FULL GRAPEVINE BALL. You will definitely need to murder the beach ball if you wait that long. Pull out the beach ball while you still have ROOM to pull it out.
3.Have your wire and wire cutters handy.
I prep a bunch of pre-cut wire, so I am not wrangling with the wire cutters, wire, ball, and grapevine all at once. I am not that coordinated. It’s nice to have all the bits and bobs ready as you are wrapping the ball.
Wrap, wire it in place. Wrap, wire. Rinse, repeat.
4.As you wrap the beach ball with the grapevine, secure it with your pre cut wire to ensure a solid hold.
It will seem tricky at first, sort of like rolling a mammoth ball of knitting wool. Once the ball gets going though, it gets easier.
5.After the grapevine ball starts to take shape, you can now deflate your beach ball.
Continue to work by building up more grapevine around the beach ball. Just keep adding the grapevine, in circles around the ball, like you are rolling a ball of wool. A big ball of wool. Something that the green giant would use to knit a sweater.
Don’t sweat it too much if you don’t get all the grapes and leaves off the ball. They will eventually dry up and fall off.
6.Finished !!!
When you are finished , you need to stand back and admire it.
7.Wrap the mini lights around the balls. You can be quite random. No rules here.
8.You can now add a chain to hang your balls. I haven’t always thought ahead on this one. I scramble around the house and barn and look for chain. I steal it from the kids bikes or my husbands workshop. Failing that, I have used the extension cord itself to hang the balls. That is probably not technically correct (or a strong/long term /smart decision) but I am so excited to hang them, I don’t care.
9.Attach electrical tape to secure the mini light plug to the extension cord and keep it free of rain and creepy critters.
10.If you feel fanciful and grow a wild hair, use a big ol’ rope or funky twine. Interesting rope is a nice twist if you are feeling artistically twisted. Hang that ball.
via lynneknowlton
